FINAL

Final Video Abstract

My goal for this video was mainly to tell a story--two swimmers each training individually, and then the big race between them. The video was also a way for me to explore what I could do with underwater shots--I wanted to experiment with the unique symmetry that the lane lines, walls, black tiles, and surface all create beneath the water. After three hours of shooting both underwater and above-water shots (split between two days) I had enough footage to put together a story. To give the race a dramatic feel I then found a song that I thought would work and set the footage to the music. Color corrections in FinalCut Pro was the longest and most tedious part about editing the video, but in the end I think it was worth it--I managed to somewhat synchronize the above-water and underwater color tones, as well as bring out the yellows and blues in the flags and lane lines. The following post details the process of creating this video.

Storyboard

Below are the two storyboards I planned out before shooing the video footage. The first thing I did was sketch a bunch of pool landscapes. What I wanted to do was establish the setting with a myriad of shots of the pool from different angles--looking out from the bottom, an aerial shot, looking up at the surface, etc. Then to establish the two different swimmers, I sketched out a close-up of each of them facing the opposite way. My hope in doing this was to let the viewer know that there were two different swimmers in the video. The rest of the sketches are of the back dive and of the race, and the end is also where I had the idea of quickly alternating shots between the two hands as they touched the wall. 

Production Log

Week of March 25: Write storyboard. Get waterproof housing for camera. 

Week of April 1: Corrected final storyboard. Filmed some preliminary shots--swimmers racing above water.  Filmed wide aerial view of entire pool. Later in the week I filmed most of the underwater footage: the underwater dive, the flipturn, the underwater finish of Swimmer 1, the jump into the pool of Swimmer 2. Also filmed the underwater scenery shots for the beginning of the video, as well as Swimmer 1 falling backwards into the pool.

Week of April 8: Edited the footage I had so far into a pre-production video and figured out what I still needed. I also color-corrected some of the footage I had already. Then I finished the filming--I filmed the aerial shots of the swimmers, the above-water views of the dive into the pool, the close-ups of the swimmers' faces, and Swimmer 2's underwater finish. I also chose the song for the video.

Week of April 15: Made the rough edit of the video, but still needed to coordinate the colors. I used the proc-amp in FinalCut Pro to make the water look less green in the above-water shots, as well as synchronize the lighting in the various shots. For the underwater and above water footage I used the color correction to bring out the blacks to fix the color of the water, as well as bring out the blues and yellows in the lane lines and flags of the pool. 

Week of April 22: Some final color editing, mostly with the lighting and water color, as well as fine-tuning the music coordination. 

Pre-Production Video

Here's the link to the pre-production video, which was put together with the music and color-corrected for the water and lighting. The black screen with text is what I did to replace the footage that I still hadn't shot by this time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pQ4n1BmK4Q&feature=youtu.be

Final Video

Here's the link to the final video, which has all of the footage, color corrections and music, as well as the credits. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LlI6rjr1A0&feature=youtu.be

Self-Evaluation

I'm happy with the way the video turned out. The music may be quite over-the-top, but it makes the footage dramatic and interesting. My friends and I also had a lot of fun shooting the footage, and it was a great feeling seeing the video come together. The hardest part for me was learning how to use the color-correct tools in FinalCut Pro. It took me a few hours just to find the proc-amp, never min figuring out how to use it. But once I got a hang of it, I saw clearly why it was worth the trouble. The lighting in the video came out looking much better than originally, and when I showed the final version of the video to my friends they said that the lighting in the video looked better than it does normally in the pool. 

I learned a lot while making this video--not only about FinalCut, but also about techniques for shooting video, how lighting is so important, the different types of shots and angles, and of course, all the problems that you could run into while shooting video. I still have a lot to learn, but I'm very interested in continuing to shoot and edit video. 

MIDTERM

Portfolio Abstract

For the six images that comprise this midterm portfolio, what I concentrated on the most was the story--I want these images to get the viewer thinking, piecing a story together from what the image shows. I believe that the story element of an image is one of its most important qualities, because whatever the viewer gets out of the image is ultimately the thoughts it stirred. Two techniques I used the most in my compositions were compositing images, as well as a strong blur tool to create distortions. The portfolio's aim is to have an almost surreal feel to it, while also telling a story in each image. Water, nature, and general abstraction are the themes found in most of my images.

Portfolio

First Image: The Distance Lane

For The Distance Lane, I wanted to do a tribute to two friends on my old swim team. My two teammates and I (on the left) were the only three distance swimmers on our team, and we prided ourselves on having the hardest practices and swimming some of the most grueling events, so I wanted to convey a feeling of closeness. First I took an old picture of the three of us and used a combination of the magic wand and lasso tools to select us; then I pasted us into a different file. Then I took a picture of the Rutgers University swimming pool (where we always had our biggest meets) and used the same selection as before to crop the pool into our shape. I put the picture of the pool behind us and lowered the opacity of our picture, so that the pool showed up in our shapes. To preserve the details of our faces, I painted over the pool picture with the same blue-green color as the water--that way our faces could clearly be seen, but still keep the same color. I then took a picture of our old YMCA and used the same selection as before to crop that to fit around our heads, so that it wouldn't be visible behind our opaque faces. As a final touch, I put a picture of each of us diving beneath each respective person and typed, "Distance Lane," in the corner.

Second Image: Drinking Nature

I don't know where I got the idea for this image, but at the time I had taken the original picture of the pond, I remember thinking that I just wanted to stay in that place forever, to absorb the beauty around me. And after looking at the picture I took, I thought, "what is someone actually did absorb the beauty of nature?" I took a picture of someone posed as if he were in ecstasy, glorying in the sheer beauty of nature, and darkened it until it was a black figure--as if he were a soul void of any qualities, and was going to literally absorb nature to fill him up. I then used a strong blur tool to make it look as if the various components of this scene--the sky, the trees, the water--were being sucked into the figure. I tried giving it a sense of depth, although I'm not too sure this turned out as well as I had hoped. I really liked the concept, however, as well as the effect the blur tool had--as if the figure were absorbing the essence of the water or trees. 

Third Image: To Each his Own

For this image, I used a picture of my friends and I which I have always liked--the five of us sitting contemplatively on a cliff, looking out over a vast space. What I did was crop out each of us, and fill our shapes with each of our respective interests and hobbies. The idea I wanted to convey was that we're all very different from each other--we all have dissimilar interests--and yet what brings us together are these moments. Although we're very different people, we've come together to share this beautiful scene, and that brings us closer. To achieve this, I started on the figure all the way to the left (incidentally me) and cropped him out. I put two layers with pictures of my interests beneath the layer of the main picture, in the space of my shape where you could see them. Then I merged the three layers together. I repeated this process with each respective shape.

Fourth Image: Eggbulb

I thought this composite image from earlier in the class always had an interesting mix of colors and contrast, as well as a cool effect with the prongs going in and out of the lightbulb. What I did to improve it was crop the extraneous materials on the outside of the lightbulb, and make the lightbulb bigger. To make the lightbulb's color stand out more than it already was, I upped the contrast and a very small bit of saturation, and lowered the brightness but slightly raised the highlights of the picture. That way, the purple really stands out, especially the glowing wire in the middle. I also slightly improved the edges of the prongs by smoothing them a little more.

Fifth Image: Crab Climbing

Every time I see a super-macro or close-up image, I always find myself thinking what it would be like if a person were just as small, and was interacting with the picture. This picture of a handful of hermit crabs is one I took on the beach with my friends. First I painted out someone's face in the background behind the thumb, so that the face would not be a distraction. I then found a variety of photos of people climbing and hiking, and carefully made selections around them with the magic wand and lasso tools. Then I put the climbers into the picture where it looked like they could fit--where the hands could look like they were grabbing, or where the feet would be positioned. In a few instances I added a shadow where needed, as well as the reflection of one of the little climbers in the shiny dark shell towards the top. There are ten climbers in all, and I like how the longer one looks at the picture, the more one sees--not just more climbers, but the details of the shells and hermit crabs as well. It looks as if the hands in the picture had scooped up a bunch of hermit crabs, and happened to find tiny people climbing among them. 

Sixth Image: The Jellyfish

Nature is often stranger than fiction, and that is arguably best exemplified by jellyfish, some of nature's oddest creatures. The original picture was taken by me this past summer, on a day when hundreds of these jellyfish washed up in the shallows of our beaches. I took a waterproof camera to take pictures, but because the water was so murky, the only way to get a clear shot was to hold the camera beneath the jellyfish and take the picture facing up. The bright sun, however, took away a lot of the detail. So after originally correcting the image for a previous assignment to reveal what details I could, I decided to take it a step further. The bottom edge of the jelly was still lacking detail and color, so I cropped a small strip of the jellyfish that did have detail and color and pasted it along the bottom edge. Next, I wanted to brighten the jellyfish's body. Using the brush tool, I painted various details onto the body and kept the center dark, but painted gradually brighter colors emanating from the center. Then I duplicated the picture of the jellyfish into a new layer on top of the original; I lessened the opacity of this new layer, and that gave the painted effects on the original layer a realer quality. I also used the blur tool to give it some tendrils, as well as the little tentacles trailing from its back edge.

Self-Evaluation

I definitely feel that I've come a long way in Photoshop from the beginning of this class. When I first came into the class, I only knew two things--the brush tool, and how to brighten or darken an image. Now, however, I've learned many new techniques such as the selection tools, how to enhance images and use the histogram, how to composite images, etc. Not only have I learned new techniques, but the class has also taught me how to look at images in a different way. Now I look for the composition of the image--what framework, if any, it was structured around--and I find myself paying attention to elements such color, line structure, spacing, etc. 

As a journalism major and an aspiring journalist, I know that the entire profession I plan on joining is making a  massive shift from printed to digital media. The digital media I'm learning from this class will give me an edge in the job market because of this digital shift. I feel that my work has evolved even from the beginning of this class, and that my new habits of paying attention to color, composition, and the like, already show in my later work. I know, however, that I've only just scratched the surface and that I still have a lot to learn. What I have already learned and improved on makes me eager for more. 

Photo Corrections

Original Image:

Corrected:

This is a picture of my cousins and I at the Jersey Shore. I wanted to correct the original photo as if I someone wanted to frame this as a family picture, but wanted a few corrections done. What I did first was take out the people from the background, and the straight layers of sand, shallows, wave, water, and sky made this pretty straightforward. Then I lightened the shadows to 21% because in the original, the faces were half-hidden in shadow. This took away some of the color of the picture, however, so I saturated the colors by 17% to give it brighter colors, and darkened the picture to -9% because the saturation made it brighter. Although I'm afraid I may have saturated a little too much. When I showed people the corrected imagine alone, however, they thought it looked natural. 

Original:

Corrected:

This was a picture I took offshore one day when hundreds of stinging jellyfish washed up onto the beach. The water was murky, however, so the only way I could get a clear shot was by holding the camera beneath the jellyfish and facing up towards the surface. Many of the pictures came out great, but a few of them, like this one, came out really dark because the sun was behind it. So I tried to correct this one, first by darkening the highlights by 22%, and then lightening the shadows to 42% from 20%. This gave a much clearer picture of the jellyfish's features. It took away from the color, however, so I gave it 21% saturation. This made the picture seem unnaturally bright, so I darkened the image to -13% lightness. To give the tentacles near the sun some definition, I upped the contrast by 8%. I'm not extremely happy with how this picture turned out, but I like how you can see the features of the jellyfish better without it looking too unnatural.

Original:

Corrected:

This is an ancient viking sword from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The original picture came out a bit fuzzy and dim, so I wanted to really bring out the old qualities and markings on the blade, handle, and hilt. I upped the contrast by 36% and upped the brightness to 13%. I tried working with the saturation and some more contrast, but this made the picture look unnatural and at one point even took away some of the details of the picture. I think it's a slightly improved, brighter and sharper image than the original. 

Compositions

For this week's assignment, we were told to create a composition using a "harmonic framework," or a series of lines to create shapes that would harmonize the composition. This was the result:

For this painting I wanted to add a story component to the artwork, so I scanned an old pencil drawing of a Maori sea goddess and modified/painted it on photoshop. I wanted there to be a contrast between the seaweed woman's straight posture and her staff's angle, with the curling tendrils to give a kind of disparity to the rules of straight lines. Here's the framework behind the painting:

The second composition using a "harmonic framework" is a picture I took in Williamsburg, VA of a judge's hands in an old court reenactment, writing with a quill and ink. 

I wanted to create the illusion that the ink was dripping down the old man's hands, down the crevices wrinkles in his fingers and onto the paper. I wanted the focal point of the image to be where his two fingers were grasping the quill, as well as the opposition of the lines formed by the quill and the trail of ink. I used the black pen and a little blur tool for the ink. Below is the framework for the composition:

Composited Images

For this assignment, we had to composite, or combine, two or more images into one.

One of our composted images had to be made up of two of our abstract pictures we took last week. The picture above is the close-up of a fork, made to look like the prongs are sticking through a blacklight bulb. I achieved this effect by first putting the blacklight bulb over the picture of the fork, lowering its opacity to give it the see-through quality of a lightbulb. I then used the magnetic lasso tool to select both the left and right sides of the prongs, copying them, and then pasting each of them into its own separate layer above the lightbulb. By rounding the edges it looks like the prongs are cutting through a round object.

The image above is the empty shell of a cracked egg, with two flowers put into the egg. I changed the brightness of the flower to better match the lighting in the original egg picture, although I'm not too happy with how that came out (by this time I had not learned much about lighting yet). First I selected the cracked inner edges of the eggshell and cut them out of the picture. I then imposed the flowers into the empty egg, and pasted the cracked edges over the flowers, giving the illusion that they are inside the egg.

I found this image to be a lot more difficult than I thought, and I am not happy with the way it came out. I wanted to make it look as if a ship were being swallowed by a wave, keeping the viewer wondering whether the wave was large or the boat was miniature. In the spirit of only using my own images, however, the only suitable picture I had of a ship was from far away, so I could not get that bluish quality of sky away from the ship's masts without erasing the masts or drawing them over, which did not look good. I cropped part of the wave to make it seem as if it were crashing over the ship, although it did not come out so well. 

Three Abstract Images

Three Abstract Images

This first image (as well as the other two) were taken by my iPhone (luckily I have now acquired a better camera). It's a close-up of the condensation inside a water bottle, held up against the light; I liked the sort of scaly pattern the droplets created.

This second image is a close-up of a fork, with a bit of egg between the prongs (is that what you call them? Teeth, maybe?). I was eating breakfast when inspiration struck, because I like the idea of how the closer you look at an everyday object, the more abstract it becomes. I also think this picture has some interesting colors.

The third image is of a closeup of a blacklight bulb. I liked how this picture seemed at first glance to look like some kind of planet, and the black circle behind it perhaps an eclipsed moon. 

First IMM Assignment: Three Photoshop Paintings

15-minute Self Portrait
This self-portrait was the first of the three images and took about fifteen minutes to make, mainly because more than half of it is just the background filled with a design from the paintbucket tool. I just wanted something simple for my self portrait, and because of the time limit the arm came out looking like pantyhose filled with lumpy potatoes.

30-minute Drawing of Choice

Although this painting of jellyfish took a half-hour to make, it was the last of the three (mainly because by the time I reached my third painting I had familiarized myself with the basic photoshop tools). I've always been fascinated by jellyfish and I tried to replicate that kind of candle-like glow of the Japanese Sea Nettles. 

60-minute Landscape Drawing

This was the second of the three paintings I made, and took an hour because I needed to familiarize myself with the brush and pen tools. The water is a separate layer with its top edge blurred to look like the sea, and the ship's reflection is a reversed image of the original ship (same goes for the clouds/sun/birds). I used the blur tool to make the reflections shimmery.